We were at the airport in Dublin sitting in terminal waiting for our flight on Ryan Air. A pilot meanders down to the terminal looking half dead. He sits in a chair and instantly falls asleep. My friend and I joke that it must be our pilot.

Twenty minutes later, we see the plane being pulled into the terminal and a Ryan Air employee comes over to the pilot and shakes him a few times. He finally wakes up, stands up looking really groggy and still about to pass out, grabs his stuff and walks onto the plane well before the boarding time. My friend and started to freak out thinking that it really WAS our pilot (it wasn’t he just got to board really, really early).

@freshyill: one of my favorite Mitch Hedberg jokes! its funny because it’s true.

Ryan Air is indeed like a bus with wings. The front end staff, in my experience, was never to keen on enforcing much of anything. So therefore you get giant stuffed crocodiles that are bigger than carry-ons are allowed to be. Good for them for kicking the lady off, though.

I’m wondering if there just wasn’t enough space in the overhead compartments. I’m assuming here, that Ryanair has overhead compartments… generally, if you push everything in the overheads to be right next to each oher, you free up a decent amount of space. I hope she actually tried to shove the thing into the overhead before she allowed it to block an emergency exit. If she did, and explained it, the flight attendant may have avoided the situation by finding it a different place in the compartment on the plane, and just asked for it to be returned before the flight landed. But we don’t know any more info, so I guess it’s just conjecture.

I’m all for safety in the skies, but a 3′ long (most likely narrow) toy plush crocodile isn’t exactly an immovable object. It’s not as huge as a person in any way, shape, or form, and is probably quite lightweight.

Seems to me the airline staff could have found a better solution than EITHER / OR.

If the woman bought the plush croc in Italy, it was probably beautifully made and quite expensive, something she wasn’t likely to dump off the plane lightly. A family friend brought our son a stuffed-toy platypus from Rome (I kid you not: it’s what our then 7-year-old asked for), and I know it set her back quite a few zillion lira. Gorgeous little duckbill, though. :-)

A lot of people are defending the croc, but really, there is a safety rule and everyone has to comply. If she bought a really fancy stuffed animal, maybe she should have packed it safely in her checked luggage. I always abide by the rules of how big my bags can be when I fly, and it’s kind of upsetting to see that some people have absolutely no regard for those rules. If everyone on a full flight brought 3′ crocodiles, the whole plane would be overstuffed! I make sure not to overpack when I go on vacation so that I have room in my luggage for any souvenirs that I might bring back.

I’m so tired of people who bring extra bags and stuff on the plane because they are too important to wait for baggage. It takes forever to board while people stuff their bags in several overhead bins. It’s worst at Christmas when people have wrapped gifts, often fragile, and planes are full.

I just have to wonder what was going on in that lady’s head. Seriously…just stash the damn teddy and get over it. How narcissistic did she need to be? She’s lucky her fellow passengers didn’t give her a beating for causing a delay on an already-long international flight.

What they don’t seem to adress is articles NEAR the exits which could
shift durring any unplanned maneuvers. The crocodile would probably end up
several seats foreward durring a hard bump or turbulance.

I’m not kidding. Every year I take a 12′ long stuffed tail to St. Louis for a cookout to scare other fellow webcomic artists. :) But transporting it’s hell unless I put it in a Jumbo Spacebag and squeeze as much air out of it. It then fits nicely into a large travel suitcase and takes up 12 pounds. If I only had a small vaccum though…